On the Agenda for the November parish council meeting, Wednesday 14th , there is an item listed as,
“ Implications of the Regional Spatial Strategy on the future of Uplyme and the Parish Plan”. Indeed the implications of this policy on Uplyme could be the biggest bombshell ever to hit the parish, yes even bigger than Barnes Meadow, Gleebelands, affordable housing in Crog Lane and the perceived threat from "Lyme Looking Forward" all rolled into one.

At the October parish council meeting (see minutes http://www.uplymeparishcouncil.org/October%202007.pdf) two parish councillors reported on a meeting that they had attended. The meeting was concerned with The Government Office for the South West’s “Regional Spatial Strategy”. Apparently for a meeting with the potential of such upheaval it was brief almost subliminal and the food was not up to standard! The four members of the public who attended the October parish council meeting heard that the parish must build 300 houses in the next 19 years. What’s more if the council does not allocate sites for these houses then a planning inspector will by default. In addition to this bombshell a new planning system will be introduced. The parish development envelope and the parish plan could be waved goodbye.

The importance of this item on Wednesday’s agenda should warrant a public attendance in the order of ten fold or more on the numbers attending the last meeting._________________It's later than you think

The public turnout at the November parish council meeting did indeed increase over the previous month’s attendance but only by a factor of two. In fact ignoring the parish’s County and District representatives, who incidentally seldom appear singularly – safety in numbers, ten members of the public attended. Obviously it was not advertised as it had deserved to be.

The parish should have received The Draft Regional Spatial Strategy during the summer but did not. Because of this oversight the council have been allowed until soon after the November meeting to respond to the draft document on how it will affect the Parish Plan. Cllr. Clark-Irons has had the gargantuan task of downloading a copy of the 10meg tome and extracting the relevant sections from the 230 odd pages to produce a response document that the council discussed and amended at the November meeting. This will be their final chance to save our Parish Plan.

Amongst a number of snippets that were aired regarding the impact that this strategy would have on Uplyme was the fact that parishes would be able to build affordable housing in their neighbouring parishes. Lyme Regis has already declared that their only possibility of building the necessary houses would be across the border in Uplyme. Indeed the town council has already identified a location in Uplyme that they are considering for this end. Bearing in mind the existing relationship between the Lyme and Uplyme councils this really has the potential of putting the cat amongst the pigeons. The future looks to be far from calm.

We did hear at the meeting that the number of new houses that the parish would likely have to accommodate would be closer to 120 rather than 300. Whether or not this number includes those that Lyme Regis would like to build in Uplyme is uncertain.

The general feeling amongst the councillors seemed to be that this is a policy, the implications of which have not been fully thought through, that will sink without trace in the coming years. It is full of conflicting details. For instance houses must be built close to the work place to limit CO2 emissions produced by transportation. What work? Well house building for one. But there are nationally not enough craftsmen in the country let alone the individual parishes to build this enormous number of houses in the country. So we will have to import them and in turn of course house them etc. Could it be that we only need to build these houses to accommodate the people to build these selfsame houses?